Desperate Measures
by thesilversun
Summary: Reset AU Ianto shot instead of Owen. Jack will do whatever it takes to get Ianto back. Jack/Ianto. Temporary character death.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Desperate Measures (1/2)

Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, with the team and Martha.

Rating: PG or there abouts.

Word Count: 4600

Warnings: temporary character deaths

A/N thank you to mcparrot who beta'd some of this for me ages ago. I've probably done so much picking about with it that I probably accidentally added mistakes again. So if you find any, that's down to me.

Written for the prompt: Ianto is the one shot at the end of Reset...does he die, become the living dead or does Ianto find out he is immortal. I know somebody gave me this prompt ages ago, and I can't remember who. So sorry for the wait whoever you are, I hope you're still around the fandom to read it.

* * *

It had all happened so quickly, Jack thought. One moment it had seemed like it had gone well or at least well as it ever went for Torchwood, and the next Doctor Copley was standing at the entrance to the Pharm, a gun pointed at them.

Before he'd been able to do anything Ianto had stepped forwards, putting himself between Martha and Copley, his hands raised placatingly. "It's over. Nobody else has to die."

Copley gave a snarl of anger and pulled the trigger. The shot struck Ianto high in the chest, just below his collar bone and he crumpled to the ground.

Jack's own shot, fired scant seconds later, took Copley between the eyes, killing him instantly.

"Hold on, you're doing to just fine." Jack dropped to his knees beside Ianto and pressed a hand over the wound. "Owen, Martha, get over here."

Ianto stared up at him wide eyed in pain and shock. His mouth opened as if to speak, then closed as he died without a sound.

Behind him Jack heard Owen's sharp intake of breath and Gwen's half stifled sob. In front of him Martha put an arm around Tosh.

"I can fix this," Jack said, voice scratchy with shock as he laid Ianto's body carefully down on the ground. He wiped blood from his hands where'd tried – failed – to stop the bleeding. "Take him home. I'll be back soon."

"He's gone," Martha said, sounding close to tears. She put a hand on his arm. "I'm so sorry, Jack. There's no way to fix this."

"He's not staying like that." Jack shook his head, fighting back tears. "I'm not letting him. He doesn't get to go, not like this. Not so soon."

"Jack..." Gwen began.

"No. You just take him home, you take him back to the Hub." Jack pushed past her then started to run.

"Let him go," Owen said, catching hold of Gwen's arm. "He'll be back."

"Will he? Will he really?" Gwen said staring after Jack.

X0X0X0X

The Hub was quiet when Jack arrived back with an ancient wooden box tucked under his arm. It had taken him a lot longer than he'd expected it to retrieve it; the crypt of the old church where it had been hidden for more than three centuries had been crawling with Weevils.

He'd felt a little guilty calling Martha and the team to meet him up on the Plas and then locking them out, but he knew they'd question what he was about to do and maybe even try to stop him. With what he had to try and to do, he didn't need any interruptions. Five minutes was all he needed to know one way or the other if it would work. It had to work Jack told himself and he hurried down the steps to the autopsy bay. It wasn't allowed to fail and leave him without Ianto for the rest of time. He'd given so damn much keeping the Earth safe with nothing in return for himself, surely this once he could be selfish and demand something in return?

He stopped as he saw Ianto lying on the autopsy table, naked apart from a sheet pulled up to his waist. The blood had been washed away, the wound a small, dark hole between his chest and shoulder. Jack'd seen death so many times before and it never got any easier, especially when the one who was dead was somebody you love.

"It's not ending like this." Jack shook his head, smiling though tears were threatening to fall. "You're coming back to me Ianto Jones. You'd better believe it."

Pausing only to take off his greatcoat, he opened the ancient chest. Inside, amongst crumbled remains of centuries old hay was a metal glove. "You always said they came in pairs," Jack said conversationally to Ianto. "So after that I went looking. I guess I was worried at the time. I was scared you'd find it, maybe turn out like Suzie, hell I don't know, maybe I thought you'd try to bring Lisa back."

He slipped the glove on and waited to feel the tug and shift of it. It was near immediate and Jack gasped. It felt different, like there was already something else there, something that was already trying to suck energy from him that should have been for Ianto. Angry and frustrated, he took the glove off and slammed it down on the table. He knew he couldn't risk using it with whatever was in it still there. What if it stopped it from working properly? What if it did something to Ianto?

Jack looked at it and then back at him. It had been years since he'd let somebody into his heart in the way that had somehow happened with Ianto and part of him hated the uncertainty and insecurity that came with loving someone, but he couldn't live without love either. He'd tried it, tried to spare himself and the men and women who would end up growing old while he remained the same that pain, but it had left him feeling more dead inside than the immortality ever had.

He'd even tried with Ianto, tried to tell himself it was just sex, that it was no different that picking a stranger up in a bar, that it was just a matter of convenience to have sex at work. Ianto had somehow seen past all that, seen past the brash, flirtatious exterior that had once been who he really was to see him a man who was as lost, lonely and scared as the rest of them. He'd seen him at his worst, whether that was letting a young girl go to save the world from the malevolent fairies, or sick and shaking after nightmares that too often haunted his dreams. And despite all that he wanted to remain at his side, wanted him to be with him for no other reason than love. After the year Jack had had he knew he needed Ianto with him, needed the quiet concern and odd sense of humour more than even the sex.

"I'm not going to let you down, not again," Jack told Ianto as he picked the glove up and put it back on. If there was something in there it was just going to have to leave, he wasn't going to give it a choice.

"Hungry little thing, aren't you?" he remarked to the glove as he felt energy being pulled from him once more. It was a decidedly unpleasant sensation, not exactly painful, not yet. He knew it could easily become so. The glove felt heavier than it had before, the gaps between the articulations in its fingers filled with fire-flecked smoke.

"That's enough," Jack said as he started to remove it again. "If you want more you come out here and make me put it back on again."

The smoke, thick and grey and oily poured from the glove to form a writhing mass on the floor at Jack's feet. Jack leapt back as he felt it reach out for him, trying pull him in and suck him dry.

Denied its chance to feed, it shrieked, shrill and angry, the lights and windows shattering and showering the Hub in glass. The systems designed to protect the Hub from alien incursion detected its presence and the alarms sounded as the automatic lock-down process was initiated, sealing them in. Jack smiled grimly. At least he wasn't going to get interrupted now.

The smoke-like creature that was rapidly solidifying into a stooped backed, long limbed humanoid figure seemed to realise that it was trapped and turned its half formed face to Jack. There was something ancient and malevolent in the glowing ember like eyes as it launched itself towards him. How something that was apparently still smoke-like and insubstantial could scratch like that Jack had no idea, but in moments his shirt was hanging in tatters, he was bloody and scratched, the entity had opened up his shoulders, back and chest. Not that he was going to let a little discomfort like that stop him.

The creature floated around the room, circling Jack, as it hissed, "I am hunger. I am loss. I am Death."

There had to be a way of stopping it. Jack looked round for anything that could be used as a weapon, before realising that he was the most dangerous thing in the room. All he needed was for it to get closer.

"I am hunger. I am loss. I am..."

"Yeah, I get it already. You want something to eat?" Jack said, trying to ignore how the glove seemed hot enough to burn his hand, and pushed it into the centre of the now humanoid mass of smoke. "Well choke on this."

It wasn't as bad as Abaddon, but it hurt and Jack was screaming before the creature gave one last ear-splitting shriek and exploded, stored energy rushing out in a wave that threw Jack backwards into the wall.

Exhausted, his throat raw, he got unsteadily to his feet and staggered back to the table. Part of him knew that that he almost certainly needed to rest before he tried again, but the other part knew that the longer the gap between death and using the glove, the less likely it was to succeed. His legs feel weak, like they were made of jelly. If he stumbled or fell while bringing Ianto back he'd break the connection, he lose him again. He couldn't risk it.

After a moments thought he kicked away the worse of the broken glass and laid his coat down as extra protection over the rest, and then lifted Ianto down from the autopsy table. Sitting on the floor, Jack cradled him in his arms. After pressing a kiss to Ianto's too cold lips he put the glove back on.

It felt cold, just bare metal around his fingers, no spark of anything. Jack took a shuddering breath, trying not to let despair creep in. Maybe the connection needed to be more than just a simple energy transfer; perhaps that was why he'd never been able to get the original glove to work. Maybe it needed mental connection as well. Like Gwen had, she'd wanted to bring Suzie back, she'd put everything into it, heart and soul and that wonderful stubbornness that had got her into Torchwood in the first place.

Every scrap of psychic training he'd received during his time at the Time Agency was screaming at him that this was the worse idea imaginable, but Jack did it anyway. Past caring about himself he dropped any shielding that he had, even the most basic parts that everybody had even though they didn't realise it and reached out to try and find Ianto's mind in the dark.

A second later Ianto gasped, his eyes snapping open. "I'm alive?" Before Jack could answer he glanced sideways and saw the glove. "Oh no, no. Oh god." He stared at Jack is horror, trying to squirm away from the glove. "Jack why? Why would you do that? That thing..."

"Because I'm not ready to lose you," Jack said voice cracking as he held him tighter, not willing to let him break the connection. "Now you fight, you hold on."

"I can't. This shouldn't be happening." Ianto's eyes closed again. "I'm sorry. I love you, I should have told you. I should..."

"You stay with me. Don't you dare go. Don't you leave me." Jack pushed more energy through the connection, until his vision started greying at the edges, the dull ache in his shoulder became a fierce biting pain and he could feel the slow, slick slide of blood running down his chest and arm.

Gwen had said that that had happened with Suzie, that she'd felt the shot Suzie had killed herself with slowly boring into her brain. Jack gritted his teeth, he couldn't stop yet not even if it killed him. Just a little longer, he told himself, all he needed was to stay alive until all the damage had transferred to himself and Ianto was healed. It wouldn't matter if he died then, Ianto would be alright. He had to be alright.

Jack closed his eyes and tried to focus. It hurt to breathe, his shoulder was agony, while his arm felt numb and useless and hung limp at his side. He could feel death creeping in, the old familiar slide of life leaving him, so with one last effort he forced what energy he had left through the connection, before consciousness finally fled.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Life and consciousness returned slowly and painfully, as Jack finally blinked awake to something wet dripping onto his face.

"You're an idiot," Ianto said voice rough. "Did you even care what this would do to you?"

"What sort of welcome back is that for the man who just saved your life?" Jack said, hoping that Ianto being snappy with him for his disregard of his own safety was a sign things were the same as they'd always been. "I was expecting at kiss, maybe..oh." He stopped suddenly aware that he could feel Ianto's fear and relief mingled in with him own. He'd not considered that, well perhaps it had been an outside possibility, but then so had a lot of things like it not working or the glove continuing to pull energy from him forever – a living death if there ever was one. With any luck it would fade in a few minutes and Ianto would never have to know.

"What shouldn't I know? What's…" Ianto stopped, eyes widening in fear and confusion. "I can hear what you're thinking. What the hell did you do to me? I mean apart from bring me back?"

Yeah, Jack thought, there really were a whole host of reasons why opening up his mind as he'd done to get him back had been inadvisable. But with Ianto warm and alive in his arms Jack couldn't bring himself to care about any of them just yet. "I don't know. I had to get you back and it wasn't working. So I gave it everything I had and hoped."

"You love me," Ianto said faintly.

"Of course I do," Jack said holding him tight, wondering how Ianto could find the fact that he loved him equally as shocking as their new, surprise telepathic link. Hadn't he made it clear enough that one of the main reasons he'd given up what he'd waited over a hundred years for was him. "Don't you ever doubt that."

Ianto shook his head looking stunned. "Don't think I can, not now."

"So how are you feeling?" Jack asked, looking at the scar on Ianto's shoulder where the bullet wound had been just minutes before. It looked old, healed, and Jack reached up to touch it. As he did he could feel a residual ache in his own shoulder.

"I could ask the same," Ianto replied. "But I think we both know the answers." Leaning forward, he unbuttoned what was left of Jack's shirt and pushed it from his shoulder to reveal a scar that was identical to his own.

Now that was seriously weird. None of the various injuries he'd had, not even the nasty, messy, deadly ones had left a mark, nothing since that day on the Game Station more than a century ago. Not that there was any chance to think about it as the emergency lighting flickered and went off, replaced by the normal harsh glare of the flourescent strips a few seconds later.

"Looks like we're about to get company," Jack said. Reluctantly letting go of Ianto, he grabbed his coat and handed it to him. If the feelings he was getting off Ianto were anything to go by, he really didn't like the idea of being naked in front of the whole team. 21st century proprietary still seemed odd, even with having lived through the 19th and 20th were it had been a whole lot more stuffy.

Ianto had just finished on row of buttons when Owen appeared at the top of the steps leaning down to the autopsy bay. "Bloody hell. So that's why you sent us all out." He looked at the shattered glass and broken cuboards. "Do I even want to know how you did it?"

"Does it matter? Ianto's alive. Jack did it!" Gwen said loud and happy, as she rushed past him down the steps to hug them. "I knew it. I knew he'd do it."

Tosh and Martha looked Jack and Ianto and then at each other, smiling and lost for words.

"Could I please have my clothes back?" Ianto asked once everybody had joined them down in the autopsy bay.

"Nope, 'cause I binned them," Owen said, sounding not in the least sorry. "They were all covered in blood and it didn't look like you'd be needing them again."

Ianto pulled Jack's greatcoat tightly about him, then sounding more than a little irritated said, "Could I at least have my trousers?"

"You really don't want them." Owen expression softened a little. "Seriously when a body dies it tends to let go of stuff."

Ianto looked blankly at him for a moment then when red. "Oh, um, sorry."

"Yeah well, you were dead," Owen said actually sounding embarrassed now as well. "So let's never talk about it again. Ever."

"Right." Ianto nodded, looking like he was hoping the floor might just open up and swallow. "Right, yes."

"Okay," Jack said, putting a hand on Ianto's shoulder and then wished that he hadn't - the connection was so much stronger when they were touching and he could feel his face flush as a result of Ianto's embarrassment.

"Probably a stupid question," Owen said, looking at him, "but are you alright? You look a bit red."

"Not everyday I get to see Ianto out of his suit," Jack replied, hoping that it would have it desired effect of getting Owen leaving the subject alone. "Maybe we should make it a regular thing. Some offices have casual Fridays, we could have naked Wednedays."

"In your dreams." Owen snorted. "And I know what you two get up to in my green house after we've gone home."

A little later and still naked apart from Jack's greatcoat, Ianto sat on the sofa behind Tosh's workstation, drinking the hot, sweet tea that Gwen had made for him. "We should run tests," he said, not meeting any ones eyes. "Just to make sure."

"Of what?" Owen said, not bothering to disguise the fact that he was staring at him. "You're alive. You're breathing. At least I assume you are or otherwise how the hell are you talking? That something that always bugged me about vampire films, how did they talk?"

"I just want know what's happening to me," Ianto said quietly, gripping the mug so tightly Jack was worried it might break. "Is that so difficult for you to understand?"

Jack could feel Ianto's fear in the back of his mind. Part of him wanted to shut down that part of his connection to him for both their sakes, feeding each others fear was hardly going to help either of them. But without knowing what would happen if he did he was unwilling to try it just yet. With a brief nod to Ianto, Jack turned to Tosh. "Can you run a scan like you did for Suzie's connection to Gwen?"

"Of course." There was worry under her professionalism, but Tosh didn't pause as she accessed the programs she needed. The knowledge that Jack had used another glove to bring Ianto back had been met with the same.

"The energy link is still present, but nothing is being transferred between them," Tosh said a few moments later, turning her monitor so that they could see the faint, glittering line of energy between Jack and Ianto. "It's stable as far as I can tell. Whether it will switch off or if it will start to draw energy from Jack again in the future I couldn't say with any degree of certainty."

"We should probably test what happens when either of them get hurt," Owen said, watching the display. "Just to make sure."

"Nobody is going to experiment on him,"Jack said sharply. Memories of what had happened to him, Emily Holroyd and Alice Guppy watching him with interest as he bled, died and revived. Too late he realised that the thoughts hadn't been shielded as he heard Ianto's sharp intake of breath and realised that he must have seen at least part of those blood soaked memories.

Ianto looked at him, sorrow in his eyes for what Jack had suffered. "I'm sure Owen would never do that to anyone," he said faintly.

"Do what?" Owen asked looking and sounding confused and irritated. "What am I missing here? What are you talking about?"

"Residual psychic link," Jack said managing to sound more relaxed about it presence than he was – not that that kind of thing was going to fool Ianto any more. Although perhaps, he realised, maybe he'd never managed to fool Ianto before either.

The team shared concerned looks, and then Owen said sceptically, "And you're fine with him being in your head?"

"I'm fine with Ianto being in me whatever way he likes," Jack said, hoping the suggestive tone would help lighten the mood.

"You're one sick man Harkness," Owen said shaking his head. "Serious though, you don't mind?"

"What about the rest of us?" Tosh said, just a hint of wariness in her voice. "Can he see what we're thinking?"

They all stared at Ianto, suddenly worried that she might be right.

"I'm not psychic. The connection is only with Jack," Ianto said wearily, pulling the greatcoat tighter about himself like he was trying to hide inside it. "Everybody at Torchwood One was tested. I pretty much failed it entirely. Very little ability in detecting and even less in shielding. I honestly thought they were going to sack me, either that or laugh." He looked slightly guiltily at them. "It's why I always avoided using Suzie's glove. It scared me."

"Oh Ianto, it'll be all right, we'll think of something," Gwen said, sitting down next to him. She looked at Jack. "We could destroy the glove and break the connection like we did with Suzie. That would work, wouldn't it?"

"It would work, but Suzie died again when we did it." Jack looked at Ianto, cold fear gripping his heart. With the telepathic connection between them he'd feel him die. He folded his arms, the action mostly hiding the shudder that went through him. "We're not taking the risk. No way."

"Suzie probably only died again because you shot her half a dozen times just before we destroyed it," Owen pointed out.

"Are you willing to bet his life on that?" Jack stared all of them down, daring any of them to challenge him. "Because I'm not. I'm the one with the connection to him and I run this place. So when I say not doing it this then we're really, really not doing it."

"Don't I get a say in this at all?" Ianto said, sounding rather peeved about it all. "I mean what if I want to take the risk?"

"Do you?" Jack asked, not bothering to hide the fear running though him from Ianto.

Ianto bit his lip, then shook his head, but didn't look any of them in the eye.

"That's settled then," Jack said with far more confidence than he felt. "Home time. Its been a long couple of days. I don't want to see any of you back here before nine tomorrow morning."

"You're just sending him home?" Gwen said looking over at Ianto. "Do you really think that's such a good idea letting him be on his own so soon?"

"No, you're all going home. Ianto is staying here with me."

There were a few grumbles, but Jack could see that they were actually glad to get away. Tomorrow there would be questions and he had no idea how he was going to answer any of them. Sometime it sucked being the one in charge, people expecting you to fix everything and make it make sense. Sometimes it felt like they were running from one disaster to the next with no idea of what they were doing.

He sat down next to Ianto on the sofa. Even without the connection he could see that Ianto was confused and scared, even if he was trying to hide it.

"We should have let Owen and Martha try a few small tests. Just a bruise or a cut or something," Ianto said now that they were alone. "We need to know how this works. If I get hurt, does it reactivate and start drawing energy from you to heal me? What if I die? Or you do? Would I just drop down dead? Would I get back up again when you do or..." He stopped and shivered. "What if I stop getting older? Am I going to be here forever, like you are?"

Putting an arm around him Jack could feel panic building in Ianto's mind as he started to consider all the consequences. "Maybe, I don't know." He wished that he had something more definite to tell Ianto, but whether the link would decrease over time, stay the same or strengthen he couldn't even begin to guess. As between his own immortality, the very basic psychic training Ianto had received at Torchwood One and the incomprehensible technology behind the glove, just about anything was possible.

"So that's it? We're tied together, possibly forever," Ianto said, voice carefully neutral. "Did you know this might happen?"

"No." Jack could still feel Ianto's fear, although, amazingly, nothing showed in his face. It made he wonder how many times in the past he'd thought Ianto was calm, but had secretly been terrified. He thought he'd been more aware than that. "I really wasn't thinking past getting you back. All I knew was that I couldn't lose you. I need you."

Ianto sighed and leant back on the sofa. "It's going to take some getting used to."

"Yeah." Jack tried not to look at where the greatcoat had fallen open. There was, even for him, such a thing as appropriate time and place for the kind of thoughts he was having. Ianto naked apart from a greatcoat was a kink that Jack hadn't realised he had until now. Unfortunately it probably wasn't the best time to be discussing it, he thought. It was a shame though, there were so many possibilities.

Next to him Ianto laughed. "Really? I'm not sure I'm that's even possible."

"Oh." Jack tried to feel a little bit guilty and failed.

Ianto smiled, then rested his head against Jack's shoulder. "I didn't say I wasn't willing to find out."

"Really? Because you don't have to right now."

"I think I just need to focus on be glad that I'm alive for now, because I can deal with that, with living. The rest..." Ianto stopped and let out a slow breath. "Well they say let tomorrow take care of itself, so I that's what I'm going to do. Or try to anyway."

"Sounds like a plan," Jack said. It probably wasn't much of a plan, but he'd had a lot of practice at living life day to day and trying not to thing too closely about the future. About all those endless years stretching out in front of him.

Life was odd. Even by Torchwood standards. The past year hadn't happen and now all the space of one day Ianto had died, come back and they were sharing a single indefinable and apparently indefinite life source as well as a telepathic link. There was so much in his mind that Jack didn't want Ianto knowing and he suspected that Ianto had memories of his own that he'd rather not share. They would deal with that when they had to, Jack thought as he leant in to kiss him, but for now they were alive and that was enough.

The End.

A/N

I know there are a lot of unanswered questions, but this felt like the right place to end it. I've not got any plans currently to write any more in this verse, but never say never. If I get a good idea one day then who knows.


End file.
